


Putting the Pieces Back Together

by chaya



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Memory Loss, Memory Wipe, hints of slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-12 02:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaya/pseuds/chaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie left the series mind-wiped by Time Lords. How well did that work? And how well was the Doctor able to keep himself away?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Putting the Pieces Back Together

Jamie doesn't feel like getting out of bed, so he sighs and breathes and busies himself with reading the sign on the wall to his left. The window overlooks another building, dull and brick and brown, so the sign is what's stared at.  
  
 **NO...**  
 **LEECHES**  
 **BLEEDING**  
 **AMPUTATION**  
 **...ON THIS PATIENT**  
  
A messy cursive signature is scrawled beneath it. The sign is very large, in bold letters, and Jamie reads it once or twice before falling asleep and forgetting about it. He wakes again and reads it anew. No leeches. No bleeding. No amputation. He wonders who 'this patient' is, and if they are so badly off that amputation is a consideration. He's seen it done once or twice, amputation, and it never looked like an improvement from the previous condition.  
  
Jamie coughs wetly and turns his head to the other side. Drool seeps from his lips onto his pillow, and he closes his eyes. Why is he so tired? He falls back to sleep.  
  
When he wakes up again, some time must have passed - it's that evening, or next evening... some evening, anyhow. Candles are lit and a nursemaid is redressing his wound. He hadn't even noticed it, but now it seems prominent, acute in his mind, as she rubs salve over the gash on his belly.  
  
"Hurts," he informs her weakly. His mouth feels dry now, lips cracked - he wonders where all that blasted drool went now that he'd finally like to have some. She tuts.  
  
"You'd do well to go back to sleep again," she whispers, as if there are other patients in the room. He's pretty sure there aren't. He can see the edge of a door to his left, meaning that this room is only the size of a small kitchen at best. It wasn't made to house recovering soldiers. It's too fancy for his like anyway.  
  
He doesn't feel like himself, he decides. As he shifts and twitches away from her touch, he finds that his clothes feel crisp and cool and unfamiliar. His frown deepens.  
  
"My kilt," he mumbles hopefully. "D'you have it? ...I don't care if it's a bit bloody."  
  
"Can't wear tartan anymore, dear." She sounds so sorry for him.  
  
He lifts what feels vaguely like his hand to his face, lays it over his eyes, and sighs. The heel of his hand is pressing soft against the bridge of his nose. There are strange pink indentations on the inside of his wrist. Sides too. All around. Like shackles, but the wrong size. Odd. "But we won," Jamie insists.  
  
"Go back to sleep, dear."  
  
Jamie's brow creases. "We _always_ win." But his eyes are already closing.  
  
 _A queer noise is coming from everywhere, like the rumbling of a great creature made of gears and steam. Jamie continues down the steps toward the best of the sounds, urgent and consistent and luring him in, and he sees the great lights and explosions of colour when-  
  
"Jamie, what are you doing down here? The engine room isn't safe!"_  
  
Something smells funny and familiar when Jamie wakes up again, and it takes him a while to realize it's him. Rather, it is the gash, now somewhat dried around the edges with crumbled specks of blood. The white salve stuff is coating it again, and it still hurts. He's used to stabbing-pain, but this _stings_.  
  
"Nurse," he moans, and the question floats back into his mind: where is he?  
  
No response. "Nurse, please," a little louder, and he sucks in air as he realises he's depleted his lungs that easily. "Please."  
  
Nobody comes, but he can hardly blame her as he's barely louder than talking. He stares at the ceiling and doesn't remember dozing off.  
  
 _Running through endless metal corridors, monsters behind and pitch darkness ahead, and if he could only remember where he was...  
  
Something crashes behind him and he sees the beast rise up. Six heads, sharp talons, and bright green fur. Didn't green fur mean harmless? Weren't the blue-furred ones the hostile lot? What had he been told just hours ago...?_  
  
When he wakes up another time, maybe the next time, maybe he just doesn't remember the last time... he's awake enough to make certain observations. The ceiling is a pleasant sort of dandelion-yellow. There is a chair in the corner of the room. The sign is still there. He is the patient the sign is talking about.  
  
He looks for the strange marks on his wrist, but they are gone or almost so. What were once dark pink indentations are now faint lines, barely darker than the tone of his skin. He might have been imagining it. He's seen lines like that before, but only on the wrists of girls who were rich enough to wear bracelets from time to time. That hardly makes sense.  
  
"Why does it say 'no amputations'?" The nurse is back, shutting the door softly behind her and carrying more strange jars. "Can't amputate my _belly_ very easily, can you?"  
  
"Of course not." She gives him a strange look, and he gives her one back as he suddenly realises she's British. He wonders why that doesn't particularly bother him. "You... you can't feel your leg?"  
  
"Which one?" He can't particularly feel much of anything. He wiggles both hands, then his right leg, and frowns at his left. "What's wrong with it?"  
  
She looks impressed and a little relieved. "The specialist must have been successful," she informs him. "Your leg is to remain numbed until it heals fully."  
  
"But... my stomach." Jamie pulls his elbows back, about to prop himself up on them, but the nurse catches on and rushes over to keep him down by the shoulders. "My stomach _and_ my leg?"  
  
"Yes, Mr. McCrimmon."  
  
He can't feel it at all. "Is my leg... alright?"  
  
"No, Mr. McCrimmon."  
  
And she immediately sees that this was the wrong thing to say, and as she watches his face fall and the blood drain from it, she adds hurriedly, "But sir, you must remember that your even being alive _now_ is quite the miracle from God, what with all the blood you lost and not being found for so long on that dreadful battlefield, oh sir, you must surely live through this, for if you were to come so far so quickly through so very much, it would indeed be a terrible waste."  
  
He can't think of anything to say to that, and he's somehow worn himself out just pushing to get up. Jamie lies back and breathes shallowly.  
  
"The doctors here are very good," she whispers soothingly. "And your specialist is taking care of everything for you. He is very dedicated to seeing you through this."  
  
Jamie feels his eyes lidding again. They are heavy, and he is too tired to fight that along with everything else.  
  
 _Girls are strutting about in strange shoes and short skirts that barely cover anything. Things are whizzing through the streets, great blue ones and red ones and he forgets their name, and music is playing somewhere, far too loudly, but it's the girls that really have his attention. Jamie is trying not to stare. A small familiar lass to his right meets his eyes and giggles.  
  
"It's only the sixties, Jamie, you needn't look so unsettled."_  
  
The nurse seems cheerier today, and he's not sure if this is because he's improved or because she wants him to believe he is. He still can't sit up after she takes his bedpan and leaves, but his left shoulder feels alright, and so he rolls onto it and looks at that side.  
  
The closed door, the empty chair, and an endtable littered with the strange jars. One of them has the white goop he's so sick of. The smell is emanating.  
  
 _"Antiseptic is vital, Jamie, whether you accept the existence of germs or not, so do stop squirming..."_  
  
Back onto his back, he can see the sign across from him. It still looks neat and almost new, so there haven't been weeks upon weeks that he's been lost to the world. He knows that much.  
  
When he rolls onto his right shoulder, there is only the window overlooking the dull brick wall, and a small and boring painting involving a field. He studies the poor attempt at a cow grazing and wonders why he's even critiquing art at all, as if he's ever seen anything worth framing.  
  
 _"The Mona Lisa herself. ...well, don't you like her? Just look at that smile."_  
  
Jamie hears the door open and he rolls back guiltily, as if he knows he shouldn't have been moving. It is not the nurse but another man, short and light-haired and wearing a nice suit.  
  
"You're the specialist?" Jamie squints.  
  
"I'm not," the man admits, with a bedside smile as he takes the chair. "I'm one of the resident doctors here at the facility."  
  
He's a doctor, he says. Something about that bothers Jamie.  
  
"Is the war still on?" He'd rather talk about that than his own probably-dying leg. At least his stomach doesn't feel quite so sore any longer.  
  
"No, dear boy."  
  
"The nurse said you lot won."  
  
"We did, dear boy." He sounds so tired, and almost like he's not happy about it at all. The man chews on the inside of his cheek and busies himself checking Jamie's stomach, leg, each eye in turn.  
  
"Any side-effects, Mr. McCrimmon?" The doctor crosses the room to open the window a few inches. Jamie scowls at this until some fresh air hits his face - it's warmer than he expected, and suddenly very welcome.  
  
 _"California. Lovely weather year round. Shame about the traffic. We should enjoy ourselves here."_  
  
"Why're you taking care of me?"  
  
"Your care has been paid for by an anonymous source, sir." The man props the window up with a small wooden block and returns to his side. "You needn't worry about expenses of supplies or the specialist. Everything is settled financially."  
  
Jamie frowns. This doesn't make sense. "I don't know anyone who could... could afford..."  
  
"To get you here? I wouldn't expect you to." The blond shrugs his shoulders. "I mean no disrespect, sir. Even the very well-off locals here, British of course, are lucky if they can afford so much as a check-up from this establishment."  
  
"The specialist," Jamie mumbles.  
  
"What about him?"  
  
"I've not seen him."  
  
"He drops in at odd hours, but I assure you he's minding you almost nightly. I believe we have him to thank for your leg's most miraculous recovery - you took two bullets to the gut but three to the leg, in most unlucky places if I may say so. Terrible bone damage. You are recovering currently as if you took one or two muscular wounds instead of five graver ones."  
  
Jamie nods a little. Sweat is rising on his forehead, matting his hair down, and so he turns further to the window. It helps. "Perhaps I'll just sort all this out once I'm properly awake, eh?" He smiles weakly. It feels very fake.  
  
"Perhaps that would be best." The man nods respectfully and leaves the room. Jamie stares out the window until he nods off.  
  
 _Jamie dreams that the specialist is short like the doctor, but not light-haired at all, the opposite. He does not see the specialist in a hospital or anyplace proper, just running through what looks like a quarry, chuckling the whole way.  
  
"I suppose that will teach us to drop in on the local clans uninvited..."  
  
And a laser fires somewhere behind them, probably at them, and that is all that Jamie remembers._  
  
"Mr. McCrimmon, sir, do you feel like eating?"  
  
It's the same nurse, plump-cheeked and hesitant. He rubs the sleep out of his eyes and pushes himself up. It's astoundingly easy, almost as if he were fine. "Jamie," he mutters. "Just call me Jamie."  
  
"Sir. Jamie." She lays a tray over his lap and sets a covered dish upon it. Jamie eyes her, lifts the dish, and sees... soup?  
  
"It looks lovely." There's a spoon at the edge of the bowl, and he takes it carefully. "Why don't I remember eating until now?"  
  
"You haven't been, sir, you've been taking some kind of pill." She watches as he tastes the broth. Cooler than he likes, but it's probably an effort to keep himself from burning his tongue scalding himself if he were to spill it.  
  
"Some kind of pill?" He echoes. "You don't even know?"  
  
"The specialist has been managing that. He said last night that you could stomach things properly now." She smiles. "He's a queer man, but you're very lucky to have him on your side. You look quite healthy today indeed."  
  
Jamie licks his lips and hunches over the bowl. "What's he look like?"  
  
"Oh, very tall, sir, very tall." She gestures upwards and upwards.  
  
This is disappointing. "Dark hair?"  
  
"Brown, sir, and not a straight lock to it."  
  
"But he's British too." Like you, he doesn't say. Like all of you.  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
He looks down. "Jamie."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Please just call me Jamie."  
  
She nods quickly. "Of course."  
  
Jamie eats in silence for a while, and the nurse watches. It is apparent she's been instructed to make sure he eats all of it, so he doesn't put up a fuss.  
  
"What's a laser?" he asks after a while.  
  
The nurse cants her head. "A what?"  
  
He sighs. "I don't know either." The soup is lukewarm now. "Just heard it somewhere."  
  
"I'll ask the doctor if you like. He's likely to know."  
  
"Aye, ask the D-" Jamie frowns.  
  
"Sir?" She leans in. "...Jamie?"  
  
"Where's the Doctor?" He sits up straighter.  
  
"I imagine he's downstairs, sir, but please tell me what it is you need in case I-"  
  
The spoon drops with a dull clatter. "Just get him. Please. I." Get the Doctor. The Doctor explains everything. The Doctor fixes everything. The Doctor can... the Doctor...  
  
 _"When I say 'run', run."_  
  
"I'll get him, Jamie, sir, don't you fret." The nurse is getting up and patting his shoulder before fleeing the room, and meanwhile Jamie is trying to figure out what exactly has him so bothered. He feels all of a sudden like he doesn't have his bearings. He looks up again only when the nurse has returned to the room with the blond man.  
  
"What year is it?" Jamie asks.  
  
"Mr. McCrimmon?"  
  
"Earth, right? What year? Where's the Doctor?"  
  
"Sir, _I_ am the doctor."  
  
" _The_ Doctor! _My_ Doctor!"  
  
"The specialist, you mean...?"  
  
"No! No. I don't know..."  
  
He sees something. What is he seeing? Is it a memory? Stars and planets, the moon, the moon is supposed to be a light in the night's sky, the moon is under his feet, the moon is...  
  
"Jamie, sir, please lay back down."  
  
The moon is...  
  
"Post traumatic amnesia. Something's triggered this."  
  
 _"Jamie, don't touch that! The TARDIS is not a plaything, you can't go pushing buttons and flicking switches willy nilly!"_  
  
"The Doctor. The Doctor? Who is... what's wrong with me?"  
  
"Mr. McCrimmon, this is obviously a large part of your healing, but you must try and remain calm."  
  
Jamie grips the sheets and forces his mind to produce a picture. It doesn't make sense. The clothes are completely unheard of, the hair is equally ridiculous, but those eyes spark an undeniable _something_ in his gut, he knows this man, this short man with tartan trousers and a large blue... rectangle... something... home?  
  
"Doctor, he doesn't look well at all anymore."  
  
"Stop calling him that."  
  
"Wh-what?"  
  
"He's not the Doctor, so please stop... you're making this all so much more confusing." Jamie shuts his eyes. "Lasers. Corridors. Antiseptic. California."  
  
 _Gallifrey. Zoe and Time Lords and hurried farewells.  
  
"Goodbye, Jamie."  
  
"But Doctor, surely we can't just-"_  
  
"Sir, please try to remain calm."  
  
 _" **Goodbye** , Jamie."  
  
Jamie lurches forward, knees drawn up to his chest. He feels like he might be sick.  
  
"I'll never forget you, you know."_  
  
"He was supposed to come _back_ for us."  
  
 _"I won't forget you."_  
  
He doesn't cry, but he's shaken and pale enough that they don't leave him be for a long while. Jamie doesn't engage them, staring forward until they go, reading over and over. No leeches. No bleeding. No amputation. A scribble of a signature just below. Could be any name in the world. The nurse looks sad when she leaves, like she thinks it's all been for nothing now.  
  
And who _would_ be happy that he survived? If he's gone mad anyway?  
  
The sheets feel stifling now, and so he nudges them off for the most part, although they stay tangled around his bad leg and he's too reluctant to look at it in the name of freeing it. He turns to the window instead and shuts his eyes. Jamie's shaken, but he falls asleep anyway. He always just seems to fall asleep recently.  
  
 _"Well, they've got it all wrong, you see. This technology, just look!"  
  
"Looks like a gun."  
  
"They have the nerve to call this a memory beam."  
  
"What's it supposed to do?"  
  
"They insist it erases memory - all of it - but what they are refusing to admit is that even they do not have such power. Nobody does. You can't **erase** memory like words on paper. You can suppress, certainly, through machines or hypnotics, but that's hardly reliable. Even my people can't do such a thing as erase them."  
  
"But your people made the TARDIS, so they must be quite clever."  
  
"They are indeed, Jamie, but they're hardly perfect."  
  
"Aye, just look at you."  
  
"Hmph."_  
  
Jamie wakes up with his eyes closed. He can't feel his leg, not exactly, but there's a sensation of movement as someone untangles the sheet from it, inch by inch, trying not to stir him. Jamie keeps his breathing even, listens for hints. Not the nurse, he always hears the nurse come in, and the blond man as well. They're city folk that clomp and trample their way down corridors and up steps. They don't mean to, of course, bless them, but.  
  
"How are you feeling, then?"  
  
Jamie wets his lips. "You knew I was awake."  
  
"Hardly a decent faker." The sounds of the sheet getting balled up and tossed into the chair by the door. Jamie cracks an eye open and watches a very tall brown-haired man retrieving a fresh sheet from under the bed - he is knelt down close, on the door's side, Jamie's left, and when Jamie turns to look at his face and the man looks up with the sheet, they hold each other's gaze for a long time.  
  
"You're the specialist."  
  
"Yes."  
  
Silence falls, and the specialist rises to his full height - over six feet, surely? - to lay the new sheet down. It feels cool where it touches Jamie's bared skin, and once it's dropped completely he tugs his arms sorely out from underneath it.  
  
"I was told of your episode this afternoon," the man says. His voice is deep and rich and relaxing. His eyes are vividly blue despite the dark.  
  
Jamie grunts noncommittally and pushes himself up by the heels of his hands.  
  
"Tell me about it."  
  
"Why? Think I was hit in the head once too often?" The Scot keeps a blank face as the man leans in and checks each eye. For dilation? Redness? Who knows.  
  
"I make no assumptions here. Only inquiring."  
  
"You wouldn't-" believe me, he wants to say, but doesn't. Something is bothering him again, and he doesn't know if he should push it down or try to focus on it. Antiseptic, California, engine noises, the moon...  
  
"Doctor Harris suspects you are recovering from Post Traumatic Amnesia."  
  
"Maybe." He doesn't know. It feels like he forgot things, it feels like something big happened, or a lot of somethings, perhaps, but what he's remembering hardly adds up to what he's positive is real. He hasn't forgotten the war or getting shot down, all of that is fresh in his mind and doesn't bother him as much as it maybe should.  
  
Getting shot or stabbed was never a big deal so long as you got back home in time...  
  
"Are you sure you want that window open?" The man's gaze lingers on it.  
  
"Aye," Jamie says defensively.  
  
"Your progress is incredibly good," the specialist compliments. He moves toward the back of the door. A greatcoat is hanging there.  
  
Jamie nods. "My leg doesn't hurt."  
  
"The salves are working, then."  
  
Salves. "You sound archaic." Archaic?  
  
"Big words, my boy." The man starts to button.  
  
"Aye, big words for a simple soldier." His back feels weak all of a sudden. He scoots back and leans against the headboard. "Guess you're leaving again."  
  
The man might have flinched there. Just a little. It's very dark and Jamie has been seeing things for a while now.  
  
"Until tomorrow night," Jamie says.  
  
The specialist turns to leave, nodding. "Until next time."  
  
"Have you ever heard of a laser?"  
  
The specialist stops.  
  
"Or taxis?"  
  
Jamie is aware that his breathing has gone a little short. The man has turned around, just an incremental fraction.  
  
"Or California," Jamie adds. "Or aeroplanes."  
  
The man doesn't say anything.  
  
"Wristwatches? Pop music?"  
  
Nothing.  
  
"What about Gallifrey?"  
  
The man turns around. The light from the window doesn't reach his face.  
  
"How do you have antiseptic? How did you save me? How did you pay for this? Has- has he sent you?"  
  
He's so quiet now. "Has _who_ sent me, Jamie?"  
  
Jamie drags the back of his hand over his eyes. "My Doctor."  
  
The specialist moves as if to approach, then stills completely, and Jamie stares at this tall and looming man just standing there in the shadows. Jamie wishes he could see his face properly. At least his eyes.  
  
"Fine," Jamie says at length. "Just. Just tell me if they're alright."  
  
"If _who's_ alright, Jamie?"  
  
"Him. And. And Zoe, and Victoria, and... all of them. Polly. Ben." Jamie sets his jaw and keeps his head craned back to see the man. "Just tell me that."  
  
Jamie waits longer. Finally the man lowers his head. "Everyone is quite safe."  
  
The Scot exhales. "Good," he says, more to himself. "Good."  
  
"You're missed, but... everyone is fine. In their proper places."  
  
Jamie nods. "You're sure."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Good."  
  
The man turns back to the door. He picks up a hat that Jamie had not noticed, and a scarf. "It might be best if we did not discuss this again."  
  
That made sense. Nobody else would understand, after all, just Jamie's old friend and this... whoever he was, who had been sent to look after him. "A-alright."  
  
"Tomorrow night, then."  
  
"Aye."  
  
The man departs quietly, and Jamie rolls onto his other side to look out the window. There is faint light coming from the street just beyond the alley, and a few candles are lit in the brick building just across. The air feels cooler, but just as fresh and welcome as earlier. Jamie closes his eyes and tugs the new sheet closer up until it's just under his chin - he reckons he should sleep sounder now, having some closure on... whatever it was. So long as he knows it was real. That he's not mad. That everyone's alright.  
  
Footsteps echo on the cobblestones beneath the window. A door creaks woodenly open and then shuts. Jamie stirs slightly, almost disturbed from his near-slumber; the sudden creaking sounds, though, and the comfortable groan of an engine, serve to ease him firmly into the realm of sleep.  
  
The sound is nearly gone as quick as it came, and Jamie murmurs quietly under his breath before burrowing further into the pillow and nodding off completely.


End file.
